On Identification

In my most recent AD&D 2e play report, the player characters wanted to discover the properties of a strange alien helmet they found in an old tomb. The helmet had seemingly been used to torture someone so badly that they became a ghost, so of course none of the characters dared to try it on and find out for themselves what it was capable of. The players are not quite ready to embrace the old-school approach that is bribing or bullying their henchmen and hirelings into being magic item guinea pigs, either. So, they decided to find the most capable wizard in town and ask her to identify the item for them. 

The problem? According to Table 69 of the 2e DMG (page 154), getting an NPC to cast identify should cost at least 1,000 gold pieces per item or function of an item to be identified. The DMG states that "the costs of purchasing a spell are such that it is far better for someone in the party to learn the spell. In general, the mercenary use of NPC spellcasters should be discouraged whenever possible. The player character are supposed to face challenges on their own!"

Clearly, there is an intended playstyle justification for the high cost of getting an NPC to cast an identify spell. But there is also a mechanical justification - identifying magic items in 2e is hard! Below is the description of the identify spell in 2e, with important parts bolded (PHB, page 175):

Range: 0

Components: V, S, M

Duration: 1 rd./level

Casting Time: Special

Area of Effect: 1 item/level

Saving Throw: None

When an identify spell is cast, magical items subsequently touched by the wizard can be identified. The eight hours immediately preceding the casting of the spell must be spent purifying the items and removing influences that would corrupt and blur their magical auras. If this period is interrupted, it must be begun again. When the spell is cast, each item must be handled in turn by the wizard. Any consequences of this handling fall fully upon the wizard and may end the spell, although the wizard is allowed any applicable saving throw.

The chance of learning a piece of information about an item is equal to 10% per level of the caster, to a maximum of 90%, rolled by the DM. Any roll of 96-00 indicates a false reading (91-95 reveals nothing). Only one function of a multifunction item is discovered per handling (i.e., a 5th-level wizard could attempt to determine the nature of five different items, five different functions of a single item, or any combination of the two). If any attempt at reading fails, the caster cannot learn any more about that item until he advances a level. Note that some items, such as special magical tomes, cannot be identified with this spell.

The item never reveals its exact attack or damage bonuses, although the fact that it has few or many bonuses can be determined. If it has charges, only a general indication of the number of charges remaining is learned: powerful (81% - 100% of the total possible charges), strong (61% - 80%), moderate (41% - 60%), weak (6% - 40%), or faint (five charges or less). The faint result takes precedence, so a fully charged ring of three wishes always appears to be only faintly charged.

After casting the spell and determining what can be learned from it, the wizard loses 8 points of Constitution. He must rest for one hour to recover each point of Constitution. If the 8-point loss drops the spellcaster below a Constitution of 1, he falls unconscious. Consciousness is not regained until full Constitution is restored, which takes 24 hours (one point per three hours for an unconscious character).

The material components of this spell are a pearl (of at least 100 gp value) and an owl feather steeped in wine; the infusion must be drunk prior to spellcasting. If a luckstone is powdered and added to the infusion, the divination becomes much more potent: Exact bonuses or charges can be determined, and the functions of a multifunctional item can be learned from a single reading. At the DM's option, certain properties of an artifact or relic might also be learned.

The key takeaway is this: In 2e, the caster must spend 8 hours preparing to cast the spell, as well as at least 8 hours recovering from casting the spell, and because the caster must handle each item, they are vulnerable to any curses which might befall them from doing so. Additionally, unlike in D&D 5e, for example, material components of spells are consumed unless stated otherwise (PHB, page 114) - in 5e, they're not consumed unless stated otherwise (PHB, page 203) - meaning that every casting of identify in 2e consumes a 100 gp pearl.

In 2e, when the player characters pay 1,000 gp to an NPC wizard to cast identify, they are paying for an entire day of the wizard's time (8 hours of prep and at least 8 hours of recovery), as well as reimbursing the wizard for the lost pearl, the risk of curses, and the risk of falling into a brief coma. Suddenly, 1,000 gp sounds more fair.

Also worth noting is that identify in 2e does not automatically reveal information about the item (the spell always has a chance of failure). A higher-level wizard has a better chance of determining an item's properties, and a wizard with access to powdered luckstone can discern more specific item properties like exact bonuses and number of charges. If anything, identify should be more expensive depending on the level of the wizard whose services are employed, as well as any additional components they might be using.

This guy will risk getting cursed and falling into a coma for 1,000 gp.

Identification, Made Easy

Over the editions of D&D, magical item identification has gradually become faster, more reliable, and less costly. In 3e, identify takes 1 hour to cast and requires no recovery time, and it automatically reveals all properties of a single item, including the means of activating the item and how many charges it has (if any).

I don't remember much from my brief time with D&D 4e, but from Googling around it looks like this was the edition which introduced the concept of automatically identifying items on a short rest, which brings us to 5e (DMG, page 136):

"A character can focus on one magic item during a short rest, while being in physical contact with the item. At the end of the rest, the character learns the item's properties, as well as how to use them."

The identify spell still exists in 5e, for those players who don't want to have to take the time to identify items the more accessible way. 5e's identify takes 1 minute to cast if a spell slot is used, or 10 minutes when cast as a ritual (avoiding the use of a spell slot). The 100 gp pearl is no longer consumed. The spell allows the character to "learn [the item's] properties and how to use them, whether it requires attunement to use, and how many charges it has, if any" as well as "whether any spells are affecting the item and what they are" and "which spell created [the item]." (PHB, page 252)

So, at worst, the player character can spend an hour to identify an item without error (without even being a spellcaster or having any knowledge of magic). At best, they can spend a spell slot to identify it in 1 minute (if they know identify and/or have it prepared). In the middle, they can spend 10 minutes and no other resources to identify it (if they know identify and can cast ritual spells).

From 2e to 5e, we went from 16 total hours of time spent on a single casting of identify to as little as 1 minute, from a 100 gp pearl which is consumed with every casting to a 100 gp pearl that can be used indefinitely, and from an uncertain prospect of success and a one-property-at-a-time process of discovery to an automatically thorough and accurate reading of an item with a single casting.

Much like the intended playstyle of 2e (player characters should overcome challenges on their own) informs 2e's approach to identification, the intended playstyle of 5e informs 5e's approach to identification. In 5e, player characters aren't meant to struggle with mundane adventurer tasks like figuring out what their new toys are and how to use them. Player character abilities simply work, they work instantaneously, and they do not usually have drawbacks, penalties, or restrictions.

This is especially true of spells - players can only learn a handful of spells as their characters progress, so they're unlikely to choose those which they deem "underpowered" or unreliable Thus, all spells must attempt to be equally compelling in order to attract players to choose them. (Wizards can technically learn every spell available to their class, but even their potential, from the player's perspective, is throttled by the greedy DM's draconian vice grip on scrolls and spellbooks found in treasure hoards.)

The modernization of magic in D&D comes at the expense of the fiction which the game was originally intended to emulate - conjurers can pick and choose exactly what otherwordly creature they summon, and have perfect and minute control over such creatures, transmuters can spend lifetimes polymorphed into monsters with no risk of ever truly becoming monsters themselves, and rare, powerful, and alien artifacts readily and reliably yield all of their secrets and powers in as little as a minute (or at most, in an hour, to any non-magic-using schmuck who handles them and thinks really hard about it).

This guy doesn't even know magic, but even he can force the cube to yield all of its most occult secrets during his lunch break!

Identification, Made Boring

The consequence of the modernization of magic item identification is that there's simply no reason for player characters to experiment with magic items ever again. Why would they, when, in a worst case scenario, they can simply sit for an hour and think really hard about the item to unerringly learn all of its properties?

The 5e DMG (page 136) does shoutout experimentation as a means of identification, for some reason: "Wearing or experimenting with an item can also offer hints about its properties. For example, if a character puts on a ring of jumping, you could say, "Your steps feel strangely springy." Perhaps the character then jumps up and down to see what happens. You then say the character jumps unexpectedly high."

Why special mention is given to experimentation when the mechanics almost completely eliminate the need for it is anyone's guess. In some scenarios, the party may have no spellcasters capable of casting identify, and may not have time to stop for an hour, or may have need of the item urgently, but this has never happened in one of my games. It's probably because one of my players almost always plays a wizard.

The DMG also has a variant rule which eliminates the ability to identify magic items on a short rest: "If you prefer magic items to have a greater mystique, consider removing the ability to identify the properties of a magic item during a short rest, and require the identify spell, experimentation, or both to reveal what a magic item does." 

Of course, there's no example given as to what a combination of identify and experimentation looks like, which would be helpful, given that identify, as written, is 100% accurate 100% of the time - so in what scenario would experimentation also be needed? Even in a campaign where short rest identification is eliminated, the identify spell is still foolproof. 

If the player characters can't cast identify themselves, they can probably find an NPC to do it for them, and certain official Wizards of the Coast products list the price of magic item identification being as cheap as 20 gp per item, which is trivially cheap even at 1st-level. There is still no incentive to experiment.

Identification, Made Interesting

Ultimately, I was inspired to write this post by two things - my above reading of the AD&D 2e description of identify, and Prismatic Wasteland's post on Potion Clues. 

Warren's post specifically made me think about how in 5e, the DMG provides a brief description of what every potion looks like. A potion of healing is red and glimmers when agitated. A potion of fire breath is flickering orange, and smoke fills the top of the container and wafts out whenever its opened. A potion of animal friendship is a muddy liquid containing a fish scale, a hummingbird tongue, a cat's claw, and a squirrel's hair. 

Details like this invite players to speculate as to a potion's properties, take notes on potions they've encountered in the past, and perhaps most importantly, experiment. The characters have had potions of healing before, so they are able to recognize the glimmering red liquid. They are able to intuit from the appearance of a potion of fire breath that the potion has something to do with fire. In en encounter with a wild animal, they might risk quaffing a potion of animal friendship, having deduced that it has at least something to do with animals, and might give them an advantage. 

Hilariously, the DMG specifically says "Potions are an exception [to the usual identification rules]; a little taste is enough to tell the taster what the potion does." On the one hand, we have an interesting way for player characters to deduce a potion's properties just by looking at them. On the other hand, the DMG says, "Nevermind all that - just take a little sip, which has no consequences whatsoever, and all will be revealed!"

Warren writes that making the effects of a potion less immediately transparent "rewards characters who can identify potions, encourages seeking out sages who identify them, and creates interesting decision points when they have unidentified potions in their bags but their backs are up against the wall." I would go a step farther and apply this approach to all magic items.

In fact, the 5e DMG even suggests that all magic items should be visually distinct (page 136): "The command word to activate a ring might be etched in tiny letters inside it, or a feathered design might suggest that it's a ring of feather falling."

A few pages later, the 5e DMG has a great section on "Special Features" of magic items (page 141). That section includes tables to determine who or what created the item or was intended to use it, details from the item's history, and minor properties and quirks of the item. 

There's probably enough material here for a separate post which goes into more detail on making magic items themselves interesting, so that the process of learning their properties is in turn interesting. Discovering that a war hammer is a +1 war hammer and only a +1 war hammer is never going to be interesting no matter how the DM adjudicates it. So, a DM should never simply give the players a +1 war hammer - they can buy that in a shop, if all they want is a +1 bonus (magic item shops are already almost completely devoid of wonder, so the items to be found there might as well be accordingly wonder-less). 

Instead, that magic war hammer the player characters find by chance in an actual dungeon on an actual adventure is the Black Earth Bludgeon, crafted of solid stone and bejeweled with polished rock. It was made by cultists of Ogrémoch to slay beings of elemental air and the worshippers of Yan-C-Bin. It grants the wielder uncanny senses when underground, but makes them slothful and lethargic on the surface world, beneath the open sky.

So, how do the player characters learn all of this about the seemingly humble +1 war hammer? The purpose of my approach, which I'll detail below, is for a magic item's properties to be communicated entirely within the fiction of the game, and to encourage experimentation by the player characters as the single best way to truly discern an item's various properties.

Identification, Made Complex

First, we have to entirely eliminate identification via a short rest. It's both easy and reliable, which makes it boring. Then, we have to make identification via identify less informative. I don't want identify to reveal an item's properties at all - only fictional information about the item's identity. Casting identify should only reveal the +1 war hammer's name, origin, and purpose.

At the DM's option, identify could also be made more costly, and less reliable. Let's say that each casting of identify requires an Intelligence (Arcana) check to properly identify the item, and that the DC is determined by the item's rarity, like so:

Item Rarity    Intelligence (Arcana) check DC
Common         10
Uncommon     15
Rare                20
Very Rare        25
Legendary       30
Artifact            35

Now, a 1st-level wizard, assuming that they have proficiency with Arcana and start the game with an Intelligence of 16 (+3) - although I don't mind player characters starting with higher ability scores - can somewhat reliably identify common and uncommon items, and can less easily identify rare and very rare items. By 13th-level, the same wizard probably has +10 to their Arcana skill, meaning they can reliably identify rare items, and can occasionally identify even legendary items. Only a character with expertise in Arcana can ever properly identify an artifact.

On a failed check, the caster has failed to magically divine the item's identity from the depths of time. On a successful check, the caster learns that the +1 war hammer is the Black Earth Bludgeon, crafted by cultists of Ogrémoch to slay beings of elemental air and the worshippers of Yan-C-Bin. There's still plenty to learn about this item, but the player characters have a place to start.

What's to stop a caster from simply attempting to identify an item over and over again until they succeed? Make the 100 gp pearl component consumable when used to attempt to identify a magic item. Now, every attempt comes with a cost.

Players and their characters can still intuit things about an item based on its appearance, as I described with regard to potions. In the case of the Black Earth Bludgeon, the players, drawing on their knowledge of the genre, might conclude that the bejeweled stone hammer was crafted either by dwarves or elementals. They might seek out these creatures, or NPCs who are knowledgeable about these creatures, to attempt to learn more about the item.

If the players don't intuit information themselves, they might lean on their characters' skills to do so. A character proficient in History, Religion, or jeweler's or mason's tools might recall reading about the item in An Encyclopedia of Elemental Evil, recognize certain symbols of the Black Earth carved into the hammer's head or haft, or recognize the magical stonecutting employed by Black Earth artisan-priests. 

Loosely interpreting a rule from Xanathar's Guide to Everything (page 78) - as I've done in the past - tool proficiencies can be combined with skill proficiencies to gain advantage on ability checks. In my case, I allow two proficiencies of any type to combine in this way, not just one tool proficiency and one skill proficiency - so a character with any combination of History, Religion, and jeweler's and mason's tools would have an increased chance of recognizing the origin of the Black Earth Bludgeon. I would use the same DC-by-rarity guidelines I outlined above for identify.

This eliminates the need for identify to some extent, but this is a good thing, as it rewards players for being able to draw their own conclusions, or for making characters with niche knowledge and skills. In a scenario where none of the players or characters have any idea what the nature of an item might be, identify still exists, but it's more costly, in addition to being somewhat unreliable.

So, either through player skill, character skill, leveraging knowledgeable NPCs, or falling back on the identify spell, the players and their characters now know a bit more about the item. How do they figure out what it actually does?

Identification, Made Fun

They experiment! 

The Black Earth Bludgeon was crafted by cultists of Ogremoch to slay beings of elemental air and the worshippers of Yan-C-Bin, so the player characters might try using it to fight air elementals, Howling Hatred cultists, and flying creatures. Against these foes, the hammer feels twice as heavy when delivering blows, but not any more difficult for the wielder to swing. These enemies crumble against the hammer's awesome might. Perhaps, against these enemies, it grants additional bonuses to attack and damage rolls, or advantage on attacks. It might cause flying enemies to fall to the ground immediately, turn enemy cultists to stone, or banish air elementals back to their home plane.

The Black Earth Bludgeon is clearly attuned with the earth itself, so the player characters might try bringing it underground. Suddenly, the wielder has an intuitive sense of how deep they are beneath the surface, and which direction is north. Secret doors and maybe even dungeon walls crumble beneath the hammer's blows. Perhaps the hammer's head pulls in the direction of precious stones.

When they return to the surface, the wielder notices that the hammer feels twice as heavy. Their every step is a burden. The endless, wide open sky feels like it's crashing down around them. They're becoming agoraphobic.

In this way, the magic item becomes another character in the game. The player characters have to spend time with the item, devote resources to uncovering its secrets, and most importantly, play with it. 

For this to be truly interesting and fun, the magic item should likewise be interesting and fun. It should have a unique appearance from which players can draw conclusions, an origin and history which the player characters and NPCs might be aware of, and multiple features, including both benefits and drawbacks, which are discovered only through continual experimentation in a variety of scenarios. Player characters cannot simply find an item, sit down with it during a coffee break, and immediately decide if they want to use it or throw it in a bag of holding to sell at the local Magic Mart.

This playstyle isn't for everyone. To some extent, it's working directly against the intended playstyle of modern D&D, which might be too much for some DMs and players. There's presumably a reason why WotC designed this element of the game this way. I'd guess that it's probably because players complained about identification being too onerous in the past. WotC loves to design by committee, rather than by vision.

I'm sure there are plenty of players who simply want to hit the identify button and be done with it, and get to using their new toy, but sometimes it's more fun to start playing with the toy without knowing what it might do.

AD&D 2e Play Report: Session 8

Last night, we played the 8th session of our ongoing AD&D 2e campaign. The combined player report for sessions 6 and 7 is here.

To recap, after a near-deadly ambush by a band of kobolds, the party had to decide whether to press on back towards town or spend time trying to locate their hireling, Terris, who had lost morale and run off in the midst of the fight. They chose to wait around for a bit, but Terris never returned, and so they left him to his fate. 

The party returned to town and returned the stonemasons they'd managed to rescue, earning some gold and the favor of the guild. Karven Stone, the thief, recruited another thief, Sheyla, as a henchman, and Yinvalur Sparkguard, the elf, became a henchman of Bernhardt Dalton, the cleric. The player of Rozidien Stoneskull, the paladin, switched out that character in favor of Ash, an elf fighter. There was some shopping and consternation over magic item prices, and the party then spent a week of downtime in town collecting rumors.

The party already knew about two quests - one nearby, to rid an old tomb of a restless spirit, and another farther afield, to kill some pegasi and steal their babies for an evil wizard, which they did not want to do. They learned of four more quests - ogres terrorizing a nearby town, a forest beast eating foresters, a bug infestation, and barbarians raiding lumber mills. They decided to deal with the nearby haunting first, then see about those barbarians.

After meeting with a priest, the party made their way to tomb. They encountered a ragged band of hungry wolves, which they chased off, as well as a band of orcs which had just been chased away from the tomb by mad barbarians occupying the site.

The party reached the tomb, avoiding the barbarians guarding the one entrance, and navigated a trapped room. Their shenanigans alerted the barbarians, who surrounded them. The party convinced the barbarians that they were not here to raid their ancestors' tombs, and Bernhardt cooked them a delicious meal which warmed their hearts and sobered their minds. The barbarians directed the party towards a secret chamber deeper within the tomb, where they found the remains which they hoped to bring back to the priest in town.

The party carefully removed the remains and moved to exit the tomb, only for shadowy figures to begin to coalesce from the eerie mist floating above the floor. A telepathic voice accused the party of stealing secrets, and said that they would die. It seemed that they would inevitably be attacked.

Aggressive Negotiations and Unlikely Outcomes

When I had originally prepped the Whispering Tomb, my reaction roll for this apparition (a generic 3 HD incorporeal undead) had been 1. In accordance with the rules I use for social interaction, that meant that the spirit would be hostile, but that the player characters would have one single chance to try to convince it not to attack, if they wanted to. Bernhardt decided to try to convince the spirit that they were not here to hurt it or steal its secrets.

I made a subsequent reaction roll (at -4 because the spirit was already hostile, and -2 because of Bernhardt's low Charisma, so -6 total) and rolled a 6 (6+6-6)! Since the reaction was not negative (5 or lower), the spirit hesitated, and Bernhardt successfully bought them some time. I rolled 2d6-4 to see how much time exactly, and got a result of 2. The party had two more attempts to convince the spirit they meant no harm.

At this point, the spirit materialized, and it looked identical to the body the party had found in the other room. There were ghostly shackles holding its arms up, as if it were still chained to the ceiling, and it wore the strange alien helmet which was still affixed to the skeleton's head.

Bernhardt told the apparition that the party was here to help a priest put a spirit to rest, and asked the apparition its name. The apparition dimly recalled its name being Vicorin, but said there must be some mistake - there was no restless spirit here, only Vicorin and his friends. The party noticed a trio of faceless, less substantial projections materialize around them - two immediately on either side of Haymond Baler, which was a bit funny.

Haymond quickly regained his composure and spoke up - which was good, because he has the best Charisma in the party. He told Vicorin's spirit that they meant no harm and would be on their way. I made another reaction roll, this time with a +2 (-4 because the spirit was still hostile, and +6 due to Haymond's Charisma). I rolled a 13 (5+6+2)!

Vicorin's spirit recognized Haymond as a simple farm boy, rather than some scheming wizard bent on stealing his secrets. Haymond had purchased bronze plate mail in town, so he gave the appearance of an aspiring knight. Surely, he could mean no harm. Vicorin's spirit relented, but said the party must leave at once. They did not need to be told twice. The faceless projections around them clawed feebly at them as they exited, but did not pursue them.

This was all a shock to me. I had fully expected to start this session with a combat encounter, especially once Bernhardt chose to be the one attempting to negotiate with the angry spirit. Once again, the dice delivered a result I never anticipated, and one which was far more interesting and satisfying than what I would have come up with on my own. I continue to feel validated in using a robust and flexible social interaction mechanic.

The party exited the tomb and rejoined the barbarians outside. The barbarians saw that the party was true to their word. Bernhardt estimated that it would take a couple of days for the spirit to be at peace (a day and a half's travel back to town), at which point the barbarians could safely reenter the tomb if they wished. Niclaus, their leader, thanked the party, and the party learned that they called themselves the Withered Wood Tribe. They parted ways amicably and the party returned to town.

Town Business (Again)

The party returned the recovered remains to the priest, Reinald. Bernhardt offered to assist in the rites which the priest would perform, which lasted from sundown to sunup and involved holy oils, incense, and much flagellation. It turned out that Reinald was a very intense man.

Reinald had no use for the strange helmet which the party had found on the corpse, and didn't know what its purpose was, so he returned it to them. The party had no way to determine its function either, besides trying it on and seeing what would happen, which none of them seemed keen to do. They asked around town and learned of a wizard by the name of Nettie who could identify it. When they headed to their tower, they found that a single casting of the identify spell would cost 1,000 gold pieces. Cue griping about how expensive everything is.

The 2e DMG actually does provide prices for spellcasting services (Table 69, page 154), and this is one of them. The DMG explicitly states that characters "must be prepared to pay (and pay dearly) for [spellcasting] services...the NPC knows [they have] the player characters over a barrel and will bargain accordingly...The costs...can be raised (but seldom lowered) for a variety of reasons. In general, the costs of purchasing a spell are such that it is far better for someone in the party to learn the spell. In general, the mercenary use of NPC spellcasters should be discouraged whenever possible. The player characters are supposed to face challenges on their own!"

I appreciate this approach to the issue, even if my players do not. As I stated in my previous play report, I am sympathetic to players when they say that they have lots of gold and not much to spend it on (even if I can think of plenty of things to spend it on), and so I do think that they should be able to purchase spellcasting services, magic items, and the like. However, in my experience players simultaneously complain that there is both nothing to spend their gold on and also that everything is too expensive. So, which is it?

5e takes a similar approach to 2e, in that purchasing magic items and spellcasting services is discouraged, but guidelines are still occasionally provided. However, the prices I've found for 5e are quite low (for example, an identify spell in 5e might cost as little as 20 gp). This means that beyond a certain level, acquiring these services is entirely trivial. At 1,000 gp per item, the choice of whether or not to outsource magic item identification to an NPC becomes much weightier.

Besides, if 1,000 gp is too rich for their blood, the players always have the option of identifying things the old fashioned way - by simply using them, or bullying their henchmen and hirelings into using them. I'm interested to see if the players ever use that option, or if they're much too fearful of the possible drawbacks to try it.

The Long Road

Next, the party embarked on their long journey south. It would be three and half days of travel from Spiritbrook to Mythshire, a day from Mythshire to Southreach, and another day from Southreach to Houndrun. The first leg of their journey (a total of ten random encounter checks) passed without incident, and they safely reached Mythshire. The tower of Lord Montaigu, the town's tyrannical wizard overlord, loomed in the center of town.

As the party passed through the town's square, they encountered a crowd of onlookers gathered around a party of adventurers. The adventurers in turn were gathered around a cart which contained the bloody remains of a pegasus, and a crate holding four pegasus eggs. A female fighter stood on the cart, holding aloft a disembodied pegasus head, proclaiming the party to be the Pit Fighters of Self-Restraint - the greatest adventurers in the land!

It was clear at this point that the players had no interest in the pegasus-butchering quest - I hadn't really expected them to pursue it to begin with, but enjoy throwing in an "evil" quest now and then to see what they might do - so I decided that as they passed through Mythshire, they'd encounter a rival group of evil adventurers who had taken the hook in their stead. I felt it was the most interesting thing I could do with a hook that otherwise would go unused.

The townspeople were variably amazed by the adventurers and disgusted by their brutality, fearing what the dreadful Lord Montaigu might do with a handful of pegasus eggs. The player characters were somewhat incensed by this grisly display, but decided against starting a fight in town. Maybe their inaction will have repercussions down the line, or maybe it won't. Either way, I plan for them to run into the Pit fighters of Self-Restraint again in the future. If I do my job right, they'll learn to despise them.

The party opted not to stay the night in Mythshire, and instead pushed on towards Southreach (three random encounter checks). Immediately outside the gates, they encountered a small group of merchants with a retinue of armed guards (this was the first random encounter of the session, despite quite a bit of traveling to this point). I decided to roll dice to determine which luxury resource from Civilization V the merchants were carrying, and got pearls, so I decided they were from a far away coastal or island nation and had crabs, ivory, and pearls.

The guards were led by a 6th-level fighter, and since they were from a seafaring civilization I arbitrarily decided that it would be funny if the leader had a trident of fish command for Haymond Baler to fawn over. The two engaged in a humorous dialogue while waiting in a queue to enter the city. 

The fighter, Germando (randomly determined using Fantasy Name Generators, and humorously similar to Haymond's own name) regaled Haymond with stories of underwater battles with shark men and giant octopi, and encouraged Haymond to seek out magical means to plumb the undersea depths and find a fine magical trident of his own some day.

The party stayed in Southreach for the evening and splurged on crab stew, courtesy of the merchants they had met. While wandering the streets, Ash was nearly embroiled in a random encounter with some rowdy workers, but was able to avoid an altercation. Haymond bought an ox, a cart, a guard dog, and a hunting dog.

I had become aware at this point that my settlements need some work. They are usually something of an afterthought for me - a place for the party to sleep, gather rumors, recruit NPCs, shop, acquire services, and the like. Aside from the local ruler and nearby quest hooks, they don't have much character. I've decided to try to devote more time to fleshing them out with more details. 

I don't particularly care what the local inns are called or what the blacksmith's name is, but it would be nice to know a factoid or two about local history, landmarks, important NPCs, and potential quests to be had in the settlement itself. I'm not entirely sure how I intend to flesh all that out and make it gameable (how many adventure sights should be in a village? a town? a city?), but it's something I'm definitely thinking about.

Red in Tooth and Claw

The next day, the party moved onto Houndrun (one random encounter check), and arrived without incident. They sought out the foreman of the local logging company, whose name I cannot recall and did not write down - I was anticipating more random encounters and did not expect the players to get this far during this session. Hopefully, one of the players took notes!

The foreman told the party that a local tribe, who call themselves the Wolfkin, had come under new leadership, and were aggressively attacking logging camps on the fringes of Houndrun's domain. The party would be rewarded so long as the foreman was satisfied that their operations could continue safely, whether that be by wiping out the raiders, killing their leader, negotiating a peace, or the like.

Haymond asked the foreman if he had anything which belonged to the tribe, so that his new hunting dog could get a scent. The foreman had a wolf pelt which the tribe's warriors wore as headdresses. With the scent, the party set out the next day towards the forest. It would take them about half a day (5 hours) to reach the last logging camp that was raided, and they hoped to find the Wolkin camp deeper in the forest beyond that.

At the edge of the forest, the party encountered a mounted patrol from Houndrun. The patrol had just scouted out the nearby logging camp which had been sacked, and were returning with Houndrun's dead. They warned the party that the camp was a brutal sight, and wished them the best of luck on in their endeavors. The patrol was not about to go running off into the deep woods to find the Wolfkin themselves.

The party reached the sacked logging camp, which had been put to the torch. There were slain barbarians scattered about. At this point, they continued on in the direction Haymond's hunting dog pulled them. The party had six more random encounter checks, which amounted to nothing. This is likely the most fortunate they've been with random encounters so far! If my math is correct, they had something like 23 random encounter checks this session, and only ended up with two encounters - one with merchants and one with a patrol.

Running Up That Hill

At about midday the following day, the thick forest cleared somewhat, and the party camp upon a hill surrounded by a wooden palisade. I rolled to determine the distance, and they were in luck - the tree line was only about ten feet from the hill, allowing the party to get very close without being detected. I Googled "barbarian camp battle map" and picked this one from Neutral Party (they are my go-to for simple wilderness maps when I need them, whereas Dyson Logos is my choice for dungeon crawl scenarios and the occasionally subterranean monster lair):

One of the players helpfully drew a line to indicate that the tree line was much closer to the hill than indicated by the map. The party was approaching from the northeast, so they entered near the upper right corner of the map, just below the hill with the big tent, which I decided was about twenty feet tall.

There was a single guard stationed on the hill at the rear of the tent, watching for intruders from Houndrun's direction. There were more guards stationed at the front gate. Karven decided to sneak up to the bottom of the hill and silently climb up to assassinate the guard. The rest of the party stayed back, with missile weapons ready in case things went south.

Karven easily climbed the hill (together with his climb walls thief ability and the nature of the slope, he had just a 5% chance of failing). Unnoticed by the guard, Karven leapt into action and successfully delivered a backstab...for 2 damage. Fortunately, the guard had 2 hit points (I rolled 2 on a d6)! He silenced the guard's death cry, then secured a rope for the other party members to climb up. Hilariously, Ash, Haymond, and Yinvalur all failed to do so, and went tumbling down the hill for minor damage. After that, they tied the rope about their waists and had the party members at the top haul them up.

This is where we wrapped for the night. Haymond and Karven both leveled up - Haymond is now 3rd-level and Karven is 4th-level. Haymond gained more hit points, a weapon and nonweapon proficiency, and his saving throws and THAC0 improved. Karven also gained more hit points and a weapon and nonweapon profiency, plus more thieving skill points, and he can now begin spending those points on his read languages ability.

Next time, the players will poke around the Wolfkin camp and try to figure out what's going on and how best to approach the problem. I have very little idea what they're going to do, which is very exciting!

AD&D 2e Play Report: Sessions 6 and 7

Last week, we played the sixth session of our ongoing AD&D 2e campaign, but I went on vacation the day immediately after and didn't have a chance to write a play report. Last night, we played our seventh session. This post will serve as the play report for both sessions. The play report from our fifth session is here.

To briefly recap, in our fifth session, the player characters set out on their journey from the Warlord's Tower back to Spiritbrook, with a bunch of armed and armored civilian stonemasons in tow. This was another session of primarily random encounters - a mirror image of our first session. 

The party re-encountered a tribe of nefarious forest people which they met on their initial ascent, and at the urging of the tribe's druid, handed them the evil sword they recovered from the tower. Shortly after, the party encountered another party of very high-level adventurers, the Gladiators of Patience, who told them that they Shouldn't Have Done That, then parted ways with them to go clean up the mess. The party avoided some wolves and owlbears, then ran afoul of a kobold ambush.

Almost every player character nearly died, and the party's hireling, Terris, ran off into the woods. Eventually, Bernhardt Dalton, the cleric, rallied the stonemasons to take up arms against the remaining kobolds, and the party was narrowly victorious.

Decisions, Decisions

With the party barely hanging onto consciousness, they had two immediate decisions to make at the beginning of session 6. Terris had run off during the fight with the kobolds and hadn't returned. Would they go looking for him, wait for him, or push on without him, and risk stumbling into another fight down one hireling? 

The kobolds had attacked in the morning, so the party still had another four hours' worth of traveling time for the day, but they were badly wounded. They could push on, and by the end of the day they'd finally be out of the forest. Or, they could stay put and recover their hit points first.

These decisions prompted a good bit of debate amongst the players, and this is why I really enjoy the complications introduced by using NPC party members, morale, random encounter checks, and varying terrain types (each with their own chance of random encounters). 

Decisions like these are what make wilderness exploration fun and interesting. If the party hadn't included any NPCs, and if I didn't use morale rules, the players wouldn't have to account for their companions acting irrationally, unpredictably, or sub-optimally. They wouldn't have to decide whether or not to risk danger by looking for their lost companion. If I didn't use random encounter checks, none of this would have happened to begin with (unless I arbitrarily decided that it "should" happen, for one reason or another). If settled farmland and forests were treated as interchangeable terrain types, the decision to camp in the forest or push on to its edge would be meaningless.

In this case, I simply told the players out-of-character that there was a greater chance of having an encounter in the forest than in the settled hexes (2-in-10 versus 1-in-10), and that the encounters in the forest were generally more dangerous than in the settled region (in settled territory, there's a chance of encountering a patrol from the nearby town, which is more likely than not to be friendly - not so in the forest). In situations like these, I like to make the mechanics player-facing so that they can make an informed decision.

Ultimately, the players decided to wait and see if Terris would return - but not for too long. They would wait an hour and no more. That was plenty of time for him to wander back. If he didn't, well, they decided he wasn't worth going after. After an hour, they'd press on through the forest until they reached its edge, then they'd make camp.

Terris did not return - I used 2e's rules for getting lost and made a roll for Terris, and it turned out that he was hopelessly lost out there and couldn't find his way back. Poor guy. After waiting the agreed-upon amount of time, the party collected themselves and moved on. They escaped the forest without further incident.

After an uneventful night camping within eyesight of the little farms and hamlets surrounding Spiritbrook, the party traveled the remaining five hours to town - again, without incident - and made their triumphant return.

Town Business

Bernhardt was curious as to whether any priests in town might be able to resurrect the stonemasons who had died on the journey. Keeping in mind my conception of "tiers of play" in 2e, I had decided that the highest-level NPCs in town would be medium-level (levels 4-7), so I told Bernhardt's player that this was not possible. Higher-level priests and other NPCs could be found in the big fantasy city at the south of the regional map, creatively named Southreach.

The party returned to the stonemason's guild and received their reward in gold. The guildmaster expressed his gratitude, and promised that any business the party had with the guild in the future could be done at a discount. My hope is that the players will take the bait and inquire with the guild should they eventually decide to build strongholds, temples, and thieves' dens in the future.

Bernhardt and Karven Stone, being 3rd-level, were now able to have 1st-level henchmen. The party offered to keep Yinvalur onboard, so he became a henchman of Bernhardt's. Karven looked around town for henchmen and recruited a human thief named Sheyla.

It was at this point that the player of Rozidien Stoneskull, the paladin, decided to remove their character from the game and replace them with Ash, an elf fighter. I wrote in an earlier play report about my approach to switching characters. We hand-waved the tradeoff, quickly arriving at an explanation for one character's departure and the other's arrival. It doesn't really matter to me. We're here to play the game - the players should play the characters they want to play, and my goal is to facilitate that and move on as quickly and easily as possible.

After this, the players wanted to cash in their salvaged equipment and plundered gems for gold. They divvied up their respective shares and converted their assorted coins into more portable platinum coins. Then, they of course wanted to shop.

Adventurers Be Shopping

Whenever my players bring up shopping, I tell them "We're not going to do that now, but think about what you want to buy between sessions, use the PHB for prices, and message me if there's anything you're not sure of." I'm not going to spend game time shopping. I usually offer a one-session grace period after the party has been in town for players to retroactively say "I would have bought that in town" or whatever. Anything to keep the game moving.

The players were curious about buying magic items, and I'm admittedly still on the fence about this. The 2e DMG specifically cautions against (or perhaps more accurately, attempts to forbid entirely) the possibility of player characters purchasing magic items. Unlike 5e, for example, there is not even an attempt made to suggest prices or price ranges for magic items. The DMG points out that player characters probably aren't selling their magic items, so why would anyone else be doing so?

I certainly like the idea that magic items are incredible and that no one in their right mind would ever sell them, but realistically, in my experience, players do sell magic items, all the time. They probably would have sold the evil sword I gave them, if they hadn't handed it over to the NPCs last session. And, I am somewhat sympathetic to the common refrain among D&D players that "We have so much gold, but there isn't anything to spend it on!"

I personally think there are plenty of things to spend gold on, besides magic items - armies, expensive clothes, followers, influence, strongholds, and the like. But, this is a game, and for better or worse, most players like to spend their character's hard-earned gold on things that make their numbers go up or make their characters more fun or interesting to play, and I'm generally okay with that.

So, the question is, how much should magic items cost in 2e? To get a general idea, I referenced the XP values associated with magic items in the back of the DMG (starting on page 183). These values are how much XP a character gets for creating a magic item. Generally, in old-school D&D, 1 XP = 1 Gold. However, in the 2e DMG, in Chapter 8: Experience, it's recommended that rogues (and rogues only) get 2 XP for each gold piece of treasure (page 70), suggesting that in 2e, one could say that 2 XP = 1 Gold (or maybe that's just for rogues).

So, what if we take the XP values for magic items in the DMG and divide them by 2 to get their market value? In that case, a potion of healing costs 100 gold, which sounds right. However, a ring of three wishes costs 1,500 gold, which is absurd.

Luckily, I recently learned about an exhaustive four-volume collection from TSR called Encyclopedia Magica, which seems to catalogue every single magic item from all of the splat books, supplements, and the like, and assigns them gold piece values. In Encyclopedia Magica, a potion of healing is worth 400 gold (which is a bit high) and a ring of three wishes is 20,000 gold (which still sounds low). Well, it's what we've got.

I'll likely use my own judgment to finesse these values a little bit, and in any case, I'm certainly not going to let my players buy items that grant wishes, so that's something of a moot point. I don't want to mess with things too much until I get a good idea of how much treasure the player characters are actually going to accumulate over time - as with many things, 2e gives little to no guidance as to how much treasure to award, so I'm using guidelines from 1e to fill in the gaps (for example, a typical treasure hoard of gold in 1e contains 250 gold per level of the dungeon).

I decided that the players could buy potions and the like in towns and villages, but for anything else, they'd have to return to the big city. Despite finding a bunch of treasure on their most recent adventure, the players were too cheap to buy healing potions for 400 gold a pop. They simultaneously complained about having a bunch of gold and nothing to buy, and also about how things were too expensive. 

A DM just can't win.

You Can Go Your Own Way: Rumors in the Sandbox

The next item on the agenda was to determine what the player characters would do next. 

The player characters currently knew of two other quests from our first session - one quest involved an evil wizard in another town who wanted adventurers to kill some pegasi and steal their babies and eggs, which three-quarters of the party had already decided was far too sinister for them, and the other quest was to go to a nearby ruin and put an angry spirit to rest on behalf of a local priest, which sounded more palatable.

At this point, I gave the players the option of spending a week of downtime in town to recuperate and gather rumors about other quests, which they opted to do. Each of them received a rumor about a new quest. Ash and Haymond Baler, being 2nd-level, received two 2nd-level quest hooks:

• Grimerun and Shimmerhollow, a pair of villages to the north and east, need adventurers to root out a forest beast which has been preying on foresters from both villages.
• Pondwick, a town to the north, needs adventurers to clear out a nest of giant spiders which have settled on the outskirts of the surrounding farmland, eating livestock and the occasional farmer.

Bernhardt and Karven Stone, being 3rd-level, received two 3rd-level quest hooks:

• Grasshold, a town to the north, needs adventurers to deal with a band of ogres which has settled on the outskirts of the surrounding farmlands and has been carrying off farmers to their lair.
• Houndrun, a town to the south, needs adventurers to deal with a tribe of barbarians who have been raiding and torching the town's logging camps.

A section of the regional map showing Spiritbrook in the far south and Pondwick in the far north. Just above Spiritbrook is Grasshold (with the Ogre Den revealed, since it's close enough to be spotted by locals). Grimerun and Shimmerhollow are roughly in the middle.

Another section of the regional map showing Spiritbrook in the far north and Houndrun in the far south. In between is the Whispering Tomb and Southreach, the big city.

The way I plan quests like these is I have a general idea of what they're about and what level range they're for (again, referring to my "tiers of play" post, either levels 1-3, 4-7, 7-12, or 9-20). Players receive rumors based on what level their characters are, and once they receive the rumor, the quest is "locked-in" at that level, and I begin prepping in detail for when the players eventually decide to pursue it. 

This keeps me from prepping, say, five 1st-level adventures (so that the players have a variety to choose from) when they'll likely only need one or two to get to 2nd-level, meaning that either half the adventures go unused, or the now 2nd-level characters spend an inordinate amount of game time "mopping up" now somewhat trivial 1st-level quests.

Ultimately, the players decided to first pursue the quest involving the ghost in the ruin (because the ruin is right outside Spiritbrook), then deal with the barbarians terrorizing Houndrun (because they want to go to Southreach, the big city, and Houndrun is just south of that).

The Priest of the Crying God

The party met with Reinald, a human priest of the Crying God (store brand name of Ilmater, the Forgotten Realms deity of suffering and martyrdom). Reinald gave them some history about what's known as the Whispering Tomb. 

The tomb was once a burial ground used by a tribe of barbarians to inter their honored dead. More recently, the barbarians came under the supernatural influence of some other entity, who employed them in capturing travelers and farmers upon which the entity performed mysterious experiments. There were rumors that the entity was a wizard, demon, angel, or something else from outside this world.

Eventually, the barbarians rose up against their master, but found the tomb haunted by some lingering manifestation of the horrors done there. They abandoned the tomb again, and now those who venture near it hear cloying whispers in their minds. Reinald believes this to be the spirit of an individual upon whom much pain was inflicted, and he seeks to put it to rest. The party can help by retrieving the individual's bones from the ruin and bringing them to Reinald for a proper burial and blessing, which he hopes will put the spirit to rest.

If the party should encounter the spirit, Reinald warned them that it will do more harm than good to fight it, but he provided them with holy water and blessed their weapons, should they need to defend themselves. He also warned them that they might encounter some remnants of the barbarian tribe, who more likely than not have come under the spirit's maddening influence.

With that, the party thanked the priest and planned to set out for the ruin. To get there, they will make a short day-and-a-half journey along the road south of Spiritbrook, briefly crossing some barren scrub at the edge of a withered forest. This is where we wrapped session 6.

Plains Walkers and Dirt Talkers

We began session 7 with the journey to the Whispering Tomb. They weren't far from town when they had their first random encounter - a pack of three wolves, which were friendly. Since the party was still in the settled region outside town, I decided that these were the remains of a pack which had fallen on hard times - they were emaciated and desperate, and trying to steal chickens from a local farmer's coop.

The party saw a farmer in the distance yelling insults and throwing stones at the wolves, who fled in their direction. The party avoided the wolves, but noticed their sorry state. The farmer, Pryor, told them that these wolves had been harassing him for days. Haymond, a farmer himself, recognized that the wolves were hungry - unlikely to attack a large group of armed adventurers, but not above attacking a civilian if it seemed like an easy meal. 

The party loosed missile weapons at the wolves at range, chasing them off into the forest. They had more pressing business to attend to, so they recommended that the farmer talk to someone in town who might be able to help him root them out in their den. Then, they continued on their way.

The party's second random encounter came that night, when Bernhardt and Yinvalur Sparkguard were on watch. Both of them were surprised as a band of fourteen orcs stumbled into their camp.

The orcs were indifferent, so I decided that they were just passing through, and would exchange information. Unfortunately, the orcs did not speak common, and none of the player characters or NPCs spoke orc. 

In my post on languages, I advocated for a less binary system which allows player characters to engage in rudimentary communications with creatures with which they don't share a language. Keeping this in mind, I allowed the players to attempt Intelligence checks (to see if they recognized any of the vocabulary the orcs were using) and Wisdom checks (to see if they could determine the orcs' intentions). Hilariously, everyone failed both checks.

Bernhardt and Karven began communicating with the orcs by drawing pictures in the dirt. The orcs drew a rough image of a ruin speaking to them, then drew warriors in horned helmets emerging from the ruin and attacking them with spears. The party correctly concluded that the orcs had been drawn to the Whispering Tomb, encountered a band of barbarians (which the party expected would be there), were attacked, and fled. 

Surprisingly, Haymond, of all people, once he awoke, managed to pass both his Intelligence and Wisdom checks. He didn't know any orcish, but he connected with what they were saying on some level, and was able to more or less confirm the rest of the party's interpretation of things, and also concluded that the orcs were not likely to attack the party.

There was some debate about sharing their fire with the orcs, but Ash, Karven, and Yinvalur (the dwarf and two elves) noticed that some among the orcs were eyeing them with sinister intent, and decided against it. The party exchanged respectful but wary pleasantries, and the orcs went on their way.

The Whispering Tomb

The rest of the night passed uneventfully, and the next day, the party reached the ruin without further incident. Immediately, once they were in the tomb's vicinity, they could hear cloying whispers in their mind.

For this dungeon, I'm using Dyson Logos's Black Skulls Tomb.

As the party approached the tomb, they spotted a humanoid figure with a horned helm watching them. Before they could get close, the figure disappeared into the hillside (on the map, the figure was in front of the northern entrance to the tomb - the crumbling stairway descending down).

Karven successfully snuck over to the entrance into which the figure had disappeared. In the room below, he spotted a group of ten barbarians, who looked like they were preparing for a fight. He informed the rest of the group, and they decided to avoid the barbarians and try the other entrance.

The other entrance had an unadorned stone slab for a door, flanked by a semicircle of four standing stones. Karven saw no means of opening the door, and began to search the area. He found that each standing stone had a lever on the back side of it. After some experimentation, the party concluded that they needed to pull all four levers at once, and the door opened.

The room beyond was carved with frescoes depicting barbarians in battle with humanoid and monstrous enemies. Among the frescoes were carvings of screaming barbarian heads, their mouths a yawning void. In the center of the room was an arrow-riddled human corpse on the floor.

The party correctly concluded that the room was trapped, but neither Karven nor his thief follower, Sheyla, could find the source of the trap. Bernhardt tried rolling a barrel of pickled fish across the floor to no effect. Karven carefully removed the corpse from its place on the floor and found that doing so reset a pressure plate. Concluding that this was the source of the trap, Karven pointed it out to the rest of the party and they navigated around it.

Opening the door at the far side of the room, the party was met with a trio of glowering barbarians. Sheyla, who had been told to stay back and watch for enemies coming up on the party's rear, let out a whistle as the remaining seven barbarians emerged from the ruin's other entrance to cut off the party's escape. In seconds, they were surrounded.

The barbarians' leader, Niclaus, accused the party of coming to despoil his ancestors' resting place and plunder their grave goods. The barbarians looked maddened and ready to attack (their reaction was unfriendly). The party did their best to convince Niclaus that this was not the case, and that they intended to remove the bones of someone who was not of the barbarians' tribe, in order to put an angry spirit to rest.

In order to placate them, Bernhardt offered to prepare the barbarians and wholesome meal of pickled fish, rice, herbs, and cheese. The barbarians, who had been living in a ruin drinking old grog and eating desert food like reptiles and bugs, were uncertain, but intrigued by the offer (I rolled an indifferent/neutral reaction). They would tentatively indulge in the party's food, but they would watch Bernhardt to ensure he did not poison them, and if they weren't satisfied, they would settle the issue with trial by combat.

At 3rd-level, Bernhardt took the cooking proficiency, which allows him to prepare "a truly magnificent meal worthy of a master chef". He put that to use here. The barbarians indulged, and the savory meal sobered them somewhat. They would allow the party to proceed, but would be waiting when they emerged from the tomb, to make sure they didn't take anything they weren't supposed to. 

Niclaus suggested that what they were looking for was probably in the secret vaults in the depths of the tomb - that's where the outsider entity made its lair ages ago, before Niclaus was born. He took them to the tomb's other entrance (the room where the barbarians had originally been), where the skeleton of a barbarian king sat upon a throne. Under the skeleton's hand was a switch, which opened the secret door in the middle of the stairway connecting the two entrance rooms. With the secret door opened, the party proceeded cautiously inside.

There, they found a grotesque scene - the room had been modified to suit some alien or monstrous entity. The air was musty and damp, a mist floated above the floor, and the floor, walls, and ceiling had been covered with a papery, slimy crust (think like a wasp nest or a xenomorph's lair). In the middle of the north wall was another featureless stone slab - a "secret" door (not really "secret", but with no discernable way of opening it).

When the party approached the door, the whispers began to intensify. Ash and Haymond both tried to push the door open. The whispers reached a deafening crescendo. Haymond had to make a saving throw and failed, taking psychic damage and recoiling from the door. Ash, being an elf, had a 90% chance to be unaffected by the psychic effect. He centered himself and blocked out the whispers, felt a psychic connection with the door, and willed it to open.

Beyond, the party found a skeleton hung from the ceiling with iron shackles. The skeleton wore a helmet on its head which looked like an alien device, with an array of lights, widgets, and doodads. At the skeleton's feet was a pile of gold coins, gems, and potions. 

The party concluded that this was the body they were looking for, and thought better of touching any of the treasure. Bernhardt said a prayer and laid out a fine cloth on the floor. Karven worked on carefully freeing the skeleton and gently laid it down on the cloth. Bernhardt bundled the skeleton in the cloth, and the party turned to leave the room.

As they exited, the whispers intensified again. The mist along the floor and shadows in the corners began to coalesce into spectral figures. The whispers finally became coherent, and made an accusation of the party: "Madness! Thieves! You have come to steal my knowledge! My secrets! You will die like the rest!"

This is where we ended the session. Ash reached 3rd-level this session. He gets a THAC0 improvement, more hit points, a weapon proficiency, and nonweapon proficiency, and improved saving throws.

Next session, the party will have to make a run for it, try to placate the angry spirit, or stand and fight. If they make it out alive, they'll return the bones to Reinald in Spiritbrook and complete the quest. Then, they'll be on their way on a long journey south.

On Being the Player I'd Want in My Game

I recently started playing in a new D&D 5e campaign, which is being DMed by one of the players in my ongoing AD&D 2e campaign. Most of my blog ideas come from being a DM, so this got me thinking about what I could write as the result of being a player.

I enjoy being a player, but I'm primarily a DM because I truly love DMing. Prep is an enjoyable solo game for me. I like the process of meticulously detailing things and the resulting feeling that I have everything figured out well ahead of the players interacting with it, meaning that I can confidently adjudicate my sessions.

Most of the time when I'm a player, the DM is not that style of DM. They might not have the same attention to detail, grasp of the rules, or sensibilities when it comes to making rulings. This can lead to disappointment, or a feeling that I could "do it better". I recognize this as a problematic attitude to have as a player, and try to keep in mind that the DM is doing what works for them, and that my DMing style is for my games. The DM is giving me the opportunity to play, so I have to make the most of it.

So, I try to be the best player I can be. I try to be the player I'd want in my game. What does that look like?

Be An Adventurer

This is probably the most obvious one, but it's a problem I've encountered more times than I'd like as a DM. The player character is a merchant, or a politician, or a farmer. They expect to start the campaign in a tavern, or a caravan, or on a ship, and for the adventure to somehow happen to them.

Professions and backgrounds are all well and good, but first and foremost, I want my players to make characters that are primarily adventurers - people who, for one reason or another, are willing and eager to trek across the wilderness, go into a dark hole, and potentially be disintegrated, eaten, or hacked to pieces by monsters, spells, and traps. 

It can be for gold, for Good, or simply an unshakeable death wish, but the player characters should want to band together with a weird group of misfits and go risk dying in a hole.

So, my characters are always adventurers. They might also be an outlander on a coming-of-age quest required by their clan, or a sage cataloguing monsters and antiquity sites, or an urchin trying to earn enough money to finally own a home, but their principle motivation is to go out and adventure to achieve those other goals. Along the way, they usually find that they like adventuring for some reason, and once they start, they just can't stop.

Take Risks

This is related to being an adventurer, but slightly more specific. It makes sense that players are conservative in the face of danger - they spent a lot of time making and playing a character, and they don't want that character to die and need to be replaced. They don't want to spend all that time acquiring magic items and social capital all over again. "Surviving" feels a lot like "winning".

My players often don't want to interact with mysterious altars, obelisks, and plinths. They avoid certain monsters by reputation, don't trust unsavory NPCs, and do their best in general to avoid trouble unless it stands in the way of their goals. These are all aspects of "good" play, but I'll admit that as a DM I'm always a little disappointed when the players decide not to interact with some nefarious element of the game which I've deviously concocted for them, not because they've concluded that it's dangerous necessarily, but simply because they're afraid of what might happen.

As a player, I try to be the devil on my fellow players' shoulders, convincing them that surely, this obviously bad idea isn't that bad. My player characters jump at the chance to try on cursed rings, make bald-faced lies to NPCs that will clearly come back to bite them, and open doors they shouldn't.

Sometimes, this works in our favor. In a past campaign, we had a random encounter with a chimera at 1st-level. My fellow players wanted to run in the opposite direction, but based on the distance at which the chimera was encountered, the size of our party, and certain spells I had prepared, I was confident we could take it. If not, dying seemed like a better story than running away.

We ended up killing the chimera, and obviously, I still remember that encounter to this day. A few sessions later, my character picked a fight with an evil high-level knight. He killed my character, and his evil sword raised my character as a zombie, bound to do his bidding. Win some, lose some. It was an opportunity to make another character, which as a DM primarily, I'm always eager to do.

Have a Plan, Have Intentions

I'm always asking my players what they want to do. I don't wait for them to tell me - I ask. "So and so is looking for secret doors. So and so is searching for traps. What are you doing while they do that?" Sometimes, the answer is, "I'm waiting until they do the thing they're doing," and that's fine! The important thing is everyone had a chance to do something. 

Ideally, the DM will go around the table and give everyone a chance for input, but as I said before, this isn't always the DM's style. Sometimes, I have to chime in: "While they're doing that, I'm doing this." I'm always thinking about what I want to do while listening to what everyone else is doing. I'm trying to come up with a way to get in on that or contribute in some other way.

More than just having a plan as to what I want to do, this is about knowing why I'm doing it. I don't say "I search the room," I say "I'm searching the desk for the wizard's spellbook," or "I'm searching the room for signs that monsters have been here." I don't say "I want to roll Charisma (Persuasion)," I say "My character says 'blah blah blah'. I want to try to convince the goblins that attacking us is a bad idea because our wizard knows a death spell."

This goes for combat, as well. Part of the reason combat takes so long is because players often have no idea what they're doing when their turn comes around. I never want to be that player. I'm thinking about my turn while listening as everyone else takes theirs. I have an idea of what I want to do in an ideal situation when my turn comes around, as well as a backup plan in case my target moves out of range or is killed, and another backup plan in case a fellow player character is wounded or needs an assist.

Intentions are important in combat, too. I keep in mind whether I want to kill the monster, subdue it, distract it, or convince it to run away. Communicating my intentions as clearly as possible allows the DM to adjudicate my actions more quickly and easily, and in a way I find satisfying, because I'm not being surprised by a "gotcha - you said you were doing this, but you weren't specific enough, so this unintended thing is how I'm going to interpret your words".

Rope Other Players In

As a DM, I find it enjoyable when players have motivations that are at odds with one another, and delight in moments when they split the party to pursue their own objectives. As a player, I find it boring when myself and many others are sidelined while the DM interacts with just a single player for a long time.

As a player, I do my best to include others in my schemes. If my rogue is sneaking off to scout the dungeon, I ask if anyone can come along via an invisibility or pass without trace spell. Maybe the wizard can send their familiar with my character. Maybe the fighter can follow a bit behind my character, far enough to not alert potential enemies, but close enough that they can assist my character if they're attacked.

If my character needs to do some research, they ask the wizard to help them find what they're looking for in the library. If my character needs to see a priest, they bring the cleric or paladin.

Sometimes, this is for no in-game benefit at all. Often, it feels like player characters don't interact unless they're making a decision or working together in combat. Players might feel that in-character interactions will only slow the game down, but sometimes slowing down makes the game more enjoyable.

As a DM, I love it when players chew up some time riffing off of each other. It makes the group feel more cohesive, gives me time to prep or think ahead, and puts the players in the headspace of their characters. A DM can prompt their players into having interactions like this, but that sometimes feels forced. I enjoy it much more when the players take the initiative.

If the party is staying in a tavern, my character will try to find another character to bunk with, and I'll devise some way to share little details about my character and tease details about the other player's character out of them during our little slumber party. If we're on a journey, I'll roll a die and strike up a conversation with a randomly-determined character, ask them how they feel about this wretched swamp we're trekking through, and oh, maybe they'd be so kind at to let my little halfling ride on their character's shoulders?

Be the Encyclopedia, but Only if Someone Chooses to Reference You

As someone who runs a lot of games and knows a lot about the game's rules, it can sometimes be frustrating when players don't know how their characters work or when the DM gets a rule "wrong", isn't aware that a rule exists or doesn't use it, or makes a different ruling than I would make. 

However, I know how annoying it can be as a DM to be interrupted by players. Sometimes it is helpful, such as when I'm genuinely unsure or mistaken about something, but often, I have my own ideas about how something "should" work, and am bringing that perspective to my style of adjudication. I know the rules, I've made a ruling - I don't want to spend 20 minutes arguing about it.

As a player, I resist the urge to "Well, actually..." other players and the DM during the game. I don't think it's my place to correct other players, and it certainly isn't my place to correct the DM. However, since I often play with the same people for whom I DM, my DM and fellow players know that I have a near-encyclopedic knowledge of the rules (particularly 5e, but also, to a lesser extent, AD&D 2e, 1e, and OD&D, in that order). Often, the DM will ask me, "Is there a rule for this?" or "What's your ruling in this situation?" In that case, I'm happy to share my input.

As a general guideline, I assume that the DM knows the rules, is confident in their rulings, and is going off-book on purpose when they do so. If the players make a mistake, it's the DM's job to catch it, unless they specifically ask a player to assist them in being a rules adjudicator, which is sometimes the case, and often a good idea. 

It's not my place to point out that attacks made with lances have disadvantage when the target is within 5 feet of the attacker, or to go on a diatribe about the mechanics for firing missile weapons into a melee. If the DM asks me if I know, or seems unaware and disappointed that there isn't a rule for something (that they know of), or is struggling with a ruling, then I know I can contribute.

Arguing about rules often slows the game down, but being able to confidently and concisely clarify them, when appropriate, can often speed things up.

The Other Side of the Screen

That's all I've got for now, but I may post more of these as new topics occur to me in play - sort of the opposite of my regular play reports, which are from the DM perspective. These posts, by comparison, will consist of my reflections as a player: things I enjoy doing as a player, things I don't, things other players did that I liked, things I want to see from my players - that kind of stuff. Hopefully, it's illuminating in some way.